Fri 2010-09-17 19:54 EDT

Obama's Thatcherite Gift to the Banks

Michael Hudson

I can smell the newest giveaway looming a mile off. The Wall Street bailout, health-insurance giveaway and support of real estate prices rather than mortgage-debt write-downs were bad enough, not to mention the Oil War's Afghan extension. But now comes a topper: the $50 billion transportation infrastructure plan that Obama proposed in Milwaukee -- cynically enough, on Labor Day. It looks like the Thatcherite Public-Private Partnership, Britain's notorious giveaway to the City of London underwriters. The financial giveaway had the effect of increasing prices for basic infrastructure services by building in heavy financial fees -- guaranteed for the banks, who lent the money that banks and property owners used to pay in taxes in more progressive times...This threatens to be the kind of tollbooth program that the World Bank and IMF have been foisting on hapless Third World populations for the past half-century. The ``infrastructure bank,'' reports The New York Times, ``would be run by the government but would pool tax dollars with private investment.'' It would be a test balloon for financing ``a broader range of projects, including water and clean-energy projects,'' for which Democrats already are drawing up a blueprint...

bank; Obama's Thatcherite Gift.

zero hedge Sun 2010-05-09 09:25 EDT

Dissecting The Crash

Here are two accounts dissecting in detail the events from yesterday. One is from Dan Hinckley at Wild Analytics, the second from Dan O'Brien. ...The idea that it was a 'fat finger' error is ludicrous; unless the fat finger hit every market in the world virtually simultaneously. Liquidity simply left the world financial markets for about four minutes this afternoon. The bids just vanished...In one second more or less someone (and yes, under these circumstances, human beings take control of the machines) made the decision to pull the bids on every equity in the S&P, every financial futures contract, every FX contract in every market in the world. This kind of thing just doesn't happen in a pure auction environment; there just isn't a tight enough communication link between the parties to allow the decisions to propagate within the same second -- even with HFT algorithms. No. Some human made the decision to pull the bids; all of them, all at once. If that is not a condemnation of the concentration of financial power and the systematic risk it engenders I don't know what is...How does all of this happen? Well, you can thank the Federal Reserve... 1) The Fed prints fake money out of thin air... 2) Large banks and hedge funds borrow money from the Fed at near-ZERO interest rates... 3) These institutions buy Treasuries with a guaranteed 4% return, thus guaranteeing the banks massive and risk-free profits on the backs of the middle class (remember, you're not allowed to earn an interest rate on your savings accounts!)... 4) These institutions then swap Treasuries with the Fed for cash... 5) These same institutions (banks) then take the cash and gun the stock market higher with its FREE MONEY from the government...I meant free money from you. By the way, were you asked to vote on this? Frankly, it's better than free money - they're being PAID to do this... 6) Banks pay the very clown-posse that cause the 2008 crash (and today's) the largest bonuses...EVER...with your tax dollars.

Crash; dissecting; Zero Hedge.

Fri 2010-03-12 08:45 EST

AlterNet: The Richest 1% Have Captured America's Wealth -- What's It Going to Take to Get It Back?

David DeGraw, Amped Status

...while US workers are now working more hours and have become dramatically more productive and profitable, our pay is actually declining and all the dramatic increases in wealth are going straight into the pockets of the Economic Elite...the average US citizen is forced to give up approximately 30% of our income in taxes. This tax system is now strategically designed to flow straight into the hands of the Economic Elite. A huge percentage of our tax dollars ultimately end up in their pockets. The past decade proves that -- whether it's the Republicans or the Democrats running the government -- our tax money is not going into our community, it is going into the pockets of the billionaires who have bought off both parties...most every serious economist knows that due to so much theft and debt created in the tax system, the only way to fix things, other than stopping the theft and seizing the trillions that have been stolen, will be for the government to cut important social funding and drastically raise our taxes...Trillions more in our spending on food and fuel has been stolen due to fraudulent stock transactions and overcharging...we have the most expensive health care system in the world and we are forced to pay twice as much as other countries, and the overall care we get in return ranks 37th in the world...The American worker is screwed over every step of the way, and it all starts with the explosion in the cost of a college education. This is one of the Economic Elite's most devastating weapons...The American dream has turned into a nightmare. The economic system is a sophisticated prison cell; the indentured servant is now an indebted wage slave; whips and chains have evolved into debts...

AlterNet; Captured America's Wealth; Go; richest 1; s; take.

Wed 2006-10-04 00:00 EDT

Rolling Stone :

Your Tax Dollars at Work, by Matt Taibbi (defense appropriations)

Rolling Stone.